"You have, Sir, been trying to do it for the last hour and a half," said the wife, with a marked emphasis of severe rebuke, "and without directing us to any other source of comfort under our troubles. We have just lost one of our dear children; but the Bible reconciles me to that loss, by telling me that my child is now happy in heaven; but you have been trying to make us believe that this is a delusion. Why, Sir, you would, if in your power, do us a greater act of cruelty than Captain Dunlop, who lives in yon big house, attempted to do to us last autumn." "I would scorn to commit an act of cruelty against any one, especially against you, who have behaved with so much civility to me. But what act of cruelty did the Captain meditate committing against you?" "You see, Sir, that little running brook which feeds the watercress you have just relished so much. Well, the Captain, last autumn, cut a deep channel for it to run through the glen, in an opposite direction, but Squire Stevens interfered, and prevented him. Now, Sir, if he had done what he was going to do, he would have taken from us our stream of water. But, even then, by raising a little subscription amongst our neighbours, we might perhaps have sunk a well, and though the water might not be so good or so plentiful, yet it might have answered our purpose. But, Sir, if you take away our Bible, or, what is the same thing, if you were to destroy our belief in its inspiration and authority, you would take from us the rich flow of comfort it supplies to us in our troubles, and you would cut us off from the hope of future happiness. Now, if you had succeeded in your endeavours, your visit would be to us as great a curse as the visit of the devil was to our first parents in Eden." "You are, indeed, eloquently ingenious. Well, the next time I come I won't say anything against your Bible." "I hope not, Sir," said the honest woodman, who appeared much pleased with the smart reproof his wife had administered to this stranger; "for if you do, we shall then say at once, what I now say after long endurance, we would rather have your room than your company. I think, Sir, such gentlemen as you should keep within the compass of your own sceptical fraternity, and then you may say what you please, and perhaps not do much harm. But when you enter the cottage of the poor, and find them happy in God, and thankful to Him for their Bible, you ought to feel it _a point of honour_ not to try to steal away their happiness; as I suppose you have too much honour to pocket any spoons when you go away from a rich man's house."